Media coverage about Crane (NYSE:CR) has trended somewhat positive recently, Accern Sentiment reports. The research group identifies positive and negative press coverage by analyzing more than twenty million blog and news sources in real-time. Accern ranks coverage of public companies on a scale of negative one to positive one, with scores nearest to one being the most favorable. Crane earned a news impact score of 0.14 on Accern’s scale. Accern also assigned news articles about the conglomerate an impact score of 45.6886687501735 out of 100, meaning that recent press coverage is somewhat unlikely to have an impact on the company’s share price in the next few days.

Here are some of the media stories that may have impacted Accern Sentiment’s analysis:

Several equities analysts recently issued reports on CR shares. Vertical Research upgraded Crane from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday, December 6th. ValuEngine upgraded Crane from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Sunday, December 31st. Bank of America lifted their price objective on Crane from $104.00 to $120.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Thursday, February 1st. Oppenheimer reaffirmed a “buy” rating on shares of Crane in a report on Tuesday, December 5th. Finally, UBS Group assumed coverage on Crane in a report on Tuesday, January 23rd. They issued a “neutral” rating and a $100.00 price objective on the stock. Five equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and eleven have issued a buy rating to the stock. The company has an average rating of “Buy” and a consensus price target of $106.29.

Shares of Crane (NYSE CR) traded down $0.55 during trading hours on Wednesday, hitting $94.48. The stock had a trading volume of 226,896 shares, compared to its average volume of 307,138. The stock has a market cap of $5,719.37, a price-to-earnings ratio of 33.16, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.33 and a beta of 1.23. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.37, a current ratio of 1.81 and a quick ratio of 1.40. Crane has a fifty-two week low of $70.56 and a fifty-two week high of $102.65.

Crane (NYSE:CR) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Monday, January 29th. The conglomerate reported $1.18 EPS for the quarter, topping the Thomson Reuters’ consensus estimate of $1.17 by $0.01. The business had revenue of $714.20 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $702.50 million. Crane had a return on equity of 20.66% and a net margin of 6.17%. The company’s quarterly revenue was up 4.8% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company earned $1.02 EPS. sell-side analysts expect that Crane will post 5.52 EPS for the current year.

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, March 9th. Shareholders of record on Wednesday, February 28th were issued a $0.35 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Tuesday, February 27th. This is an increase from Crane’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.33. This represents a $1.40 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.48%. Crane’s payout ratio is 49.30%.

In other news, VP James A. Lavish sold 12,984 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, February 22nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $94.90, for a total transaction of $1,232,181.60. Following the completion of the sale, the vice president now directly owns 16,997 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,613,015.30. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. Also, VP Augustus I. Dupont sold 16,396 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, February 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $97.74, for a total transaction of $1,602,545.04. Following the sale, the vice president now directly owns 102,994 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $10,066,633.56. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last 90 days, insiders have sold 46,861 shares of company stock valued at $4,476,647. Insiders own 3.10% of the company’s stock.

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Crane Company Profile

Crane Co (Crane) is a manufacturer of engineered industrial products. The Company operates through four segments, including Fluid Handling, Payment & Merchandising Technologies, Aerospace & Electronics, and Engineered Materials. The Fluid Handling segment is a provider of engineered fluid handling equipment, including Process Valves and Related Products, Commercial Valves and Other Products.